April 29, 2014: Dr. Peter Garnavich (University of Notre Dame) and Dr. Paula Szkody (University of Washington) have requested the help of AAVSO observers in monitoring the cataclysmic variable SBS 1108+574 (= CSS 120422:111127+571239) in support of upcoming Hubble Space Telescope observations. The HST COS (Cosmic Origins Spectrograph) will be carrying out far-ultraviolet spectroscopy of this target on 2014 May 12-13 UT.

The AAVSO Newsletter is a periodic, general forum that supports our various observing programs with lists of new targets, observing programming ideas, and general information that spans a wide area of interest. Guest writers contribute pieces that can range from current events to book reviews.

Over the weekend the AAVSO International Database (AID) hit an important milestone. We broke the twenty-five million mark! We would like to express our appreciation to each and every observer who has contributed even a single observation to that total.

March 14, 2014: On 2014 March 20 at approximately 02:06 a.m. EDT (06:06 UT), an occultation of Regulus (alf Leo, magnitude 1.4 V) by the magnitude-12.4 V asteroid (163) Erigone will take place. The occultation track includes Bermuda and northwest along a corridor stretching from the mid-Atlantic USA through Ontario, Canada.

March 5, 2014: HST/COS are being scheduled for the U Gem-type dwarf nova SDSS J100658.40+233724.4, the 40th and final target of the major CV observing campaign organized in 2012 by Drs. Boris Gaensicke, Joseph Patterson, Arne Henden, and 13 other astronomers (see AAVSO Alert Notice 471 and note below). A precise time will be announced later, but the scheduled HST observing window is:

Congratulations to AAVSO staff member Mike Simonsen, and to AAVSO Past President Mario Motta who each have had an asteroid named in their honor by the IAU Minor Planet Center.

The official citations read as follows:

(367732) Mikesimonsen = 2010 UT62 Discovered 2005 May 4 by J. Bedient at Faulkes Telescope. Mike Simonsen (b. 1956) is a talented musician, an accomplished horticulturalist, a popularizer of astronomy, and a leader in the study of variable stars.

February 6, 2014: Rod Stubbings (observer code SRX; Tetoora Road, Victoria, Australia) reports an outburst of the recurrent nova V0745 Sco (aka Nova Sco 1937). Stubbings reports the nova at a visual magnitude of 9.0 on 2014 February 6.694 UT (JD 2456695.194). He previously observed the field on 2014 February 5.696 and found the star fainter than 13.0, indicating that this outburst began within the past 24 hours.